The Last Voyageurs by Lorraine Boissoneault

Author:Lorraine Boissoneault
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books

Near Blind River, Ontario

October 11, 1976

Wind, rain, and waves battered the fleet of canoes. All morning the paddlers had muddled through the dismal mess of water. Whatever luck had been with them during the first few days of beautiful weather in Georgian Bay had long since disappeared. Maybe Gitche Manitou was testing them—or maybe it was simply a bad time of year to attempt traveling through northern lakes. On its own, getting wet was a common enough occurrence and could be ignored for the length of a day’s paddle. But getting wet and being exposed to a cold wind was more than miserable. It was dangerous. Already some of the skinnier men like Clif Wilson and Jorge Garcia, who paddled in the same canoe as Wilson, were shivering and pale. If they spent much longer on the water, they’d risk hypothermia.

Hobart consulted his maps in the back of the canoe. The group had stopped at the tip of a spit of land to decide what to do next. The boats lurched over four-foot swells. The occasional breaker splashing in over the sides sent men reaching for bailers to dump the water back out. With a howling wind coming from the southwest, there was no way to avoid being exposed to waves. Behind them there were several islands they could paddle around for shelter. The rocky shoreline would make landing hard, but not impossible, especially since the wind and waves wouldn’t be pushing them forward. Around the point ahead of them was a bay that stretched back for slightly more than a mile. They could paddle two miles to get to the opposite side of the bay, but that might be risky due to the direction of the waves. If they went straight into the bay, they’d have to hope for a soft landing site because the waves would be coming from directly behind them, forcing them ahead at uncontrollable speeds. Landing on rocks at high speeds could easily damage the canoes, and counting on a landing spot that wasn’t rocky was a gamble in Georgian Bay, where the shoreline was often granite boulders.

“Given what I can see of the terrain, I don’t think we should head into the bay,” Hobart said. Instead, he thought the crew should backtrack and find a sheltered landing spot to get the canoes out of the water. Not a wonderful prospect for the night, but probably safer than paddling into unknown waters. Many of the crew members agreed with his assessment, even if it meant turning back and camping on the cold, wet rocks for a night. Just when Hobart thought they’d come to a decision, Lewis said something to the men in his canoe, and they started paddling. In a moment, they’d disappeared around the point.

Hobart and the others exchanged incredulous looks. What the hell had just happened? What were they supposed to do now?

“If he’s gonna go, we have to go,” Hobart said. “We can’t be separated.”

As soon as they made the turn into the bay, the boats were caught up in the grasp of rolling waves and rocketed forward.

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